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Rethinking Public Service Delivery: Managing with External Providers: 3 Paperback – 25 June 2012

by John Alford (Author), Janine O'Flynn (Author)

4.2 3 ratings

Part of: The Public Management and Leadership Series (7 books)

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Winner of the 2014 Academy of Management Public-Nonprofit (PNP) Division Best Book Award

Many public services today are delivered by external service providers such as private firms and voluntary organizations. These new ways of working - including contracting, partnering, client co-production, inter-governmental collaboration and volunteering - pose challenges for public management. This major new text assesses the ways in which public sector organizations can improve their services and outcomes by making full use of the alternative ways of getting things done.

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'There is no other work that I am aware of which brings together so effectively the wide range of lessons we have learned about the consideration, initiation and management of the many new (and not so new) forms of alternative service delivery.' - John Langford, Canadian Public Administration

'There is no other work that I am aware of which brings together so effectively the wide range of lessons we have learned about the consideration, initiation and management of the many new (and not so new) forms of alternative service delivery.' - John Langford, "Canadian Public Administration"

'This excellent book provides a useful and innovative framework for understanding effective delivery of public services.' - Steven Rathgeb Smith, University of Washington, Seattle. 'A brilliant introduction to new ideas and techniques for delivering public services, backed by convincing examples and analyses.' - Knut Eggum Johansen, Special Adviser, Government Reform, Norway 'Should be required reading for all who want to understand the costs and benefits of different forms of public service provision, and the circumstances that influence their relative effectiveness.' - George Boyne, Cardiff Business School 'A landmark survey. The framework can be used by both scholars and practitioners and will significantly advance the cause of creating public value.' - G. Edward DeSeve, former Senior Advisor to President Obama'Drawing on lively case examples, this compelling book introduces differing types of engagement, concepts for choosing them, and techniques for managing them.' - Terry Moran, former head, Prime Minister's Department, Australia

From the Back Cover

Winner of the 2014 Academy of Management Public-Nonprofit (PNP) Division Best Book Award

Many public services today are delivered by external service providers such as private firms and voluntary organizations. These new ways of working - including contracting, partnering, client co-production, inter-governmental collaboration and volunteering - pose challenges for public management. This major new text assesses the ways in which public sector organizations can improve their services and outcomes by making full use of the alternative ways of getting things done.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Red Globe Press; 1st edition (25 June 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0230237959
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0230237957
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.97 x 1.75 x 21.59 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 475,137 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 430 in Public Affairs & Administration (Books)
- 1,766 in U.S. Government

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4.2 3 ratings

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Janine O'Flynn
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Janine O'Flynn is a Professor of Public Management in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Professor at the Australia and New Zealand School of Government. Prior to this she was Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at The Australian National University. Her research interests are in public sector management, especially public sector reform and relationships. She works with several PhD scholars examining issues of public sector reform. Janine is the Deputy Editor of the Australian Journal of Public Administration and an Editor for Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies (to launch 2014). She sits on the Editorial Board of Public Administration, the Journal of Management & Organization and Canadian Public Administration/Administration publique du Canada. In 2012 she was appointed to the Executive Board of the International Research Society for Public Management.
For up-to-date public management issues follow Janine on Twitter: @JanineOFlynn
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John Alford
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MisterHobgoblin

For the railway workers of Victoria

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 December 2014

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This is an excellent and thought provoking text concerning all aspects of externalising public services. It appears to be aimed at public servants who have some responsibility for the delivery of public services, probably at a strategic level, and probably those who already have some understanding of the concept and lexicon of public value.

Alford and O'Flynn argue against the "one size fits all" approach to externalisation, pointing to the shortcomings of the 1950s focus on internal delivery; the 1980s focus on privatisation; and the 2000s approach of partnership. They offer a model that will help to assess which model of delivery is appropriate to which circumstances, and offer theoretical arguments that could be used to defend such recommendations. The text is lively and engaging, with plenty of real world examples and illustrations - drawn from multiple countries - to ensure that the concepts are meaningful.

Unusually, this text gives full consideration to issues of relationship management; this is an aspect of contracting and partnership that is often overlooked within the public service - it is seldom budgeted, where it is explicitly factored in it tends to be conflated with performance management and undertaken by people who don't have the right skill set. Again, this text will lend weight to consideration of relationship issues within the initial cost benefot analysis and business case for externalising services. The text also gives a very good consideration of the strategic issues (usually cost) of externalising, including the loss of a capacity to revert to internal delivery; a loss of capability to manage the contract once knowledge of the service is lost; and the loss of implied cooperation between different services once they are separately externalised.

The text does not seem to be ideologically driven - and indeed counsels against taking decisions on service delivery along idealogical grounds - but it is endearing to see that John Alford bestows his dedication on the railway workers of Victoria (who got him started on all this).

This is very much a primer text (there are extensive references for enthusiastic students to follow) but it still offers enough food for thought to make it a worthwhile read in its own right, not simply as an overview text.